She belonged to Bibby Line, which ran passenger and cargo services between Rangoon in Burma (now Yangon in Myanmar) and various ports in Great Britain, via the Suez Canal and Gibraltar.

[4] The second Cheshire was the second of five sister ships that the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company of Govan in Glasgow built for Bibby Line.

[5][6][7][8] Fairfield built Cheshire as yard number 620, launched her on 20 April 1927, and completed her that July.

She returned to the South Atlantic Station from December 1941 to April 1943, and was assigned to the Nore Command from May to June 1943.

[11] From January to March 1940 Cheshire took part in the escort of three SL convoys from Freetown in Sierra Leone to Britain.

[15] On 8 October 1940 Cheshire and her sister ship Salopian were on patrol when enemy aircraft attacked Convoy WS 3 (Fast), which was assembling in home waters to take seven troopships from Britain to Suez.

Salopian resumed her patrol, but Cheshire stayed with the destroyers HMS Active and HMCS Ottawa to assist Oronsay, which had been damaged.

[11] At 21:28 hours 14 October 1940 U-137 attacked Cheshire northwest of Ireland at position 55°13′N 13°02′W / 55.217°N 13.033°W / 55.217; -13.033, hitting her with one torpedo.

[16] On 9 June 1943 the Admiralty returned Cheshire to Bibby Line, for conversion into a troopship for the Ministry of War Transport (MoWT).

In the small hours of 24 December 1944 Cheshire and the Belgian troopship Léopoldville, escorted by four destroyers, left Southampton to cross the English Channel to Cherbourg.

That afternoon, just 5+1⁄2 nautical miles (10 km) off Cherbourg, U-486 sank Léopoldville with two torpedoes, killing 763 US soldiers and 56 crew.

[11] On 5 October 1948 the MoWT returned Cheshire to Bibby Line,[11] which resumed its passenger service between Britain and Rangoon.